


as the world crumbles down

by hilarions



Series: alleyways and backlanes [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, D.Gray-man
Genre: Initial Antagonism, M/M, book of fire, plot-driven romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14621952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilarions/pseuds/hilarions
Summary: In the case of breaking Cross Marian out of prison.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> who knew id procrastinate this hard on BB!!!!!!!! actually posting one (1) chapter of this fic will probably discourage me from writing any more, but if u Want more then pls leave a comment nd let me know. i feast on that shit

There was a ship waiting for them, beyond the coast. A sieged cargo hauler of Fire Nation design, manned by army defectors and Earth Kingdom spies. They’d been using it to stage reconnaissance missions for months. Exchanging spoils and supplies for information. Allen was thrilled.

Tyki, less so.

The last place he wanted to be going was the Fire Nation, and the last means of transport he wanted to take there was a closed steel trap. But, he had his reasons for keeping up appearances. He had no doubt that slipping away would have Howard Link on his tail. Which wasn’t to say he doubted his ability to disappear - the Dai Li guard wouldn’t lead the Avatar away from their mission for more than a day, and wouldn’t leave him unattended for more than an hour. 

Bar his personal distaste for the Fire Nation, though, he really had nothing better to do. Trailing along with the Avatar would be interesting, at the very least. He was an interesting fellow. 

What kind of child would challenge a Dai Li for the sake of a man he didn’t know? What child would charge a known assassin with his tutelage? 

Beyond that, their journey down the cargo roads to the cavern docking the ship had been entertaining, to say the least. Tyki was, in effect, under Allen’s word of protection. Howard Link couldn’t touch him, no matter how frustration and bitter infuriation made his lips pitch into fruitless disgust. It was a new kind of thrill, taunting a shirshu with a scent it had been chasing for years. The Dai Li had never been exactly fond of Tyki. 

It was on that ship, the sun long since set and their young fire-bending Avatar already asleep on his cramped bunk, that Link felt it prudent to disclose just how useless his status as a National Guard would be for them. 

“Whether the Earth Kingdom has people in place or not doesn’t help us,” he admitted, face inscrutable, voice quiet out of respect for Allen. “As far as mission statements go, I’m dead. I don’t  _ have  _ any contacts,” he reasoned. “The King cannot be seen to be associated with the Avatar. The Fire Nation would redouble their efforts to break through our walls, and the citizens would riot.” A cautious glance cast up to Allen’s bunk, and he lowered his voice to a subdued murmur. “Everyone knows what he did thirty years ago.”

_ Everyone knows he started this war,  _ Tyki inferred, an unamused sort of smile twisting his lips. “So,” he summarised, leaning lazily back in his chair, “you’re a spy who doesn’t have  _ any  _ resources or recon in the government of the nation we’re sneaking into in order to break a high-security prisoner out of the most fortified jail they have. Interesting,” he considered, brow arched in taunting mockery. “What good are you, really?”

_ “Your  _ talents seem to amount to sneaking and thievery,” Link countered, eyes flickering narrow and dangerous as a threat. “Perhaps you’ll find it in your latent inclination to be of some assistance.”

Lips twisted in something of a wry, mocking pitch, Tyki said, “I’m not here to break a Fire Nation Admiral out of prison.”

“You’re here,” Link bartered past gritted teeth, “because the Avatar wishes you to be. And you’ve done little enough to hold up your end of the deal.”

“Right,” Tyki laughed, “right. All is in the past once I teach the kid my  _ sneaking and thievery.” _

“Would it be too much,” Link seemed to consider, “or too  _ little,  _ to assume that you’ve broken out of your share of prisons?”

“Too little,” Tyki answered, his sardonic smile turning sharp. “That would entail getting  _ caught.  _ In terms of breaking in, though, I have some experience.” Link’s unenthusiastic question was phrased in the unimpressed twitch of his brow. “See, every now and then,” Tyki confided, leaning in, voice dropped to a murmur, “the higher-ups want someone taken care of. There’s no bad press when an enemy of the crown dies in their sleep,” he reasoned, simple and mockingly sweet. 

Link’s expressions were an art of subtlety, but Tyki found he quite liked this portrait of furious disgust. Tight jaw, tight lips, carefully steady breaths, and a glare to challenge any flame Allen could conjure up. He pushed himself to stand, rough and stilted, and bit out, “You are repulsive,” in a manner that spoke as though he couldn’t hold himself back from saying it. 

“You kill people,” Tyki laughed after him, leaning back in his chair. “You just don’t have the blood on your name to prove it.”

His only answer was the heavy, sharp clang of the cabin door being slammed shut in Link’s departure. A quiet sigh huffed from the bunk Allen had been sleeping on, and he peered over the edge to look down at Tyki. He had a tired look about him, but not as though he’d just been woken up. Figures. 

“I’m almost sorry I’m dragging you along,” he mumbled, interrupted partway by a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“What was the alternative?” Tyki reasoned, wry, the air of amusement falling away.

Allen didn’t answer. He’d saved Tyki’s life, and they both knew it. Saved him from Link’s unshakably obtuse sense of  _ duty.  _ He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and Tyki glanced back up at him again. There was a question on his face, some curiosity. “Do you really think Link’s killed people?” he asked like he wasn’t sure how an answer would make him feel.

Tyki’s lips curled in a small, dissatisfied sort of smile and he let his eyes slip closed. “He had a knife to my throat under the suspicion that, after a brief conversation with you, I might be a threat.” He opened his eyes, pinned them on Allen. Heavy with weary mockery. “His hands were steady.”

Allen seemed to consider that, and nodded understanding before sinking back onto his bunk and turning away, out of sight. “I kind of hoped he wasn’t a killer,” he murmured.

“He isn’t,” Tyki said, lifting his feet up onto the table. “That’s a different thing entirely.” Allen didn’t say a thing, and Tyki breathed a quiet sigh. “Answering his duty doesn’t make him a killer,” he reasoned, all but a quiet hum. “It makes him a soldier.”

“What about you?” Allen asked without showing his face. 

Tyki’s lips twisted in some vague mockery of a smile. “I’ve only ever been a killer, boy.”

“I trust you, though,” he mumbled into his blankets amidst the rustle of sheets, settling in to sleep. 

Tyki blinked up at the bunk, surprised. “Link was the one you were looking for,” he reasoned. “Do you not trust him?”

Allen shifted again, and let out a quiet sigh. “I can’t believe a National Guard’s orders could be this simple.”

Tyki’s eyes fell to his hands, fingers twined loosely in his lap. The boy was right about that, at least. Tyki’s encounters with the Dai Li had always been few and far between, and had never once been pleasant. The occasional job here and there that they couldn’t be seen to dirty their hands with, and a follow-up intended to silence him. It was hardly in character for them to be direct. 

“I trust you,” Allen murmured, “because you don’t serve anyone but yourself. Link has a whole nation of people who want me dead behind him.”

Tyki arched a brow. “Really think I wouldn’t off you for an extra spot of cash?”

A quiet laugh tumbled out of Allen and he said, hand reached out to quiet the flames of their cabin’s lamp, “We’ll cross that bridge if we stumble upon it.”

Tyki huffed a breath of amusement and ducked his head, pushed up to stand. “I’ll go see what I can find out from our untrustworthy friend,” he said, pushing open the door and slipping out. Allen hummed a sound of unenthusiastic reprimand, and Tyki closed the door quietly to let him sleep. 

He wasn’t much a fan of ships in any form, and particularly not those of Fire Nation engineering. All welded steel and heavy pipes overhead huffing steam through the engines. Narrow gangways, all closed in. At least the cabin had a window. Though, he couldn’t imagine Link felt at all at home there either. If Tyki was claustrophobic, Link was at an illustrious disadvantage. 

Finding the deck was a breath of relief, the tension that had coiled quietly in his chest dissipating the moment a brisk ocean breeze caught and tangled in his clothes, almost like an embrace.  _ I missed you,  _ it seemed to say, fresh air caressing his face, arms, hands. 

He pulled in a deep breath, let it swirl through his lungs. A small smile, at home wherever the wind could find him. 

Link was standing at the back of the ship, arms folded over the iron-cut balustrade. Tyki stepped to him, not making a sound on the sheet steel, and Link seemed to breathe a worn sigh. “You have light feet,” he said to the ocean below, churned ragged by the ship’s engine, and brought his heel down on the metal deck just hard enough for Tyki to feel the vibration of it, “but I can still feel you coming.”

Tyki laughed at that, came to lean his hip against the rail. “Not easy to sneak up on, are you?” he considered, arms folded comfortable over his chest. 

Link glanced at him from the corner of his eye and asked, “What do you want?”

“Some air,” Tyki said simply, and breathed the salt-scented wind in deep.

“Go find your own,” Link muttered, eyes back out on the ocean. The coast had long since disappeared behind them, and they had another whole day on the ocean ahead of them. 

“Wind is a free commodity,” Tyki sniffed, lifting a hand to twist a current between his fingers and balance it in his palm. A swirling tornado the size of an apple. Link huffed a sharp breath, already exasperated, and Tyki let the air fall apart to be swept away with the breeze. “What do  _ you  _ want?” he countered.

Link’s look of thoughtful confusion might have been cute, if Tyki weren’t so aware of the fact he could and would break his fingers, wrist and arm without breaking a sweat or batting an eye. If he were to be so inclined. “I came up here to get away from you,” he muttered, confusion dropped in favour of sour frustration. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Tyki said simply.

Link eyed him, up and down, and turned to face him properly, one hand still holding the rail. “Why are you asking?”

Tyki heaved a deep, wistful sigh and reasoned, “Plain, bored curiosity. Don’t get me wrong,” he added, “I don’t think you’re particularly interesting. But what else is there to do but get to know each other?”

“Sleep,” Link muttered, visibly unhappy with Tyki’s attention. 

“Can’t,” he admitted with a shrug. “I don’t like the air down there. See?” he prodded, a smile curling onto his face. “Getting to know each other already. Isn’t this fun?”

Link blinked, and the simple divot between his brows somehow managed to convey irritation, condescension and an utter lack of comprehension for an artfully overarching air of confoundment. “This is all very one-sided,” he said.

“Of course it’s not,” Tyki refuted with a smile. “I’m learning plenty about you.”

His frown deepened, and lost the touch of confusion. It wasn’t so cute, right then. It was a Dai Li soldier appraising a taunt. He didn’t ask what Tyki might have on him, though. Voice cold, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Fulfilling my debt,” he answered.

“No,” Link asserted, hand slipping from the rail. “What are you  _ doing  _ here?”

Tyki glanced away, a laugh ghosting past his lips. Eyes fell closed, a baiting smile on his face. He glanced at Link, his look narrow and sly. “Plain,” he murmured, “bored. Curiosity.”

Link lifted his chin a touch, unmovable assertion. “Keep your curiosity out of my way,” he said, threat quiet as an ocean breeze. 

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering,” he promised, a breath away from mockery. 

Link’s lips tightened, and his nose almost wrinkled. Effective disgust. How thrilling. He looked, for a moment, as though he might like to say something. Audit some command. With another scathing look he seemed to think better of it and turned on his heel, striding back towards the hold.

“Sleep well, Howard,” Tyki called after him, the taunt brushing past like a breeze against a boulder. How standard. How painfully mature. It might have been frustrating to watch him disappear down the stairs without a shred of unnerved tension in the set of his shoulders, but the night was cool and the breeze was warm, and the steady churn of the engines was somehow ambient when it wasn’t clanging through the walls. It would be worth staying out there for an hour or two, until he might be tired enough to sleep regardless of narrow corridors and stale air.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cue me binging research on ba gua zhang for like a day just so tyki can push link ovver cause hes a BABY. hate these idiots when do they kiss

Allen had long since found himself well-adjusted to early mornings. Which wasn't to say he was a morning person - by default, at least - but after close to a decade of Cross’s tutelage, of rising with the sun and setting with it too, of having the lifestyle of a Fire Bender drilled into him with a bucket of icy water dumped over his head should he sleep a bare minute past sunrise, it was a solid case of nurture trumping nature that had him blinking awake early enough that the sky beyond the tiny round window of their cabin was still dark. 

He dragged a long, steadying breath deep into his lungs, heart still shuddering in his chest. Not a nightmare. They were rarely nightmares. But there was something inside him that wanted out, and the closest he ever got to touching it was when he slept. 

Frantic desperation, some savagely holistic fire of burning purpose. 

He dragged his hand across his brow, down to rub at his sleep-blurred eyes, and breathed a quiet sigh before sitting up and twisting to sling his legs over the edge of the bunk, sheets wearily stripped away. 

Link was up already, it seemed. Neat clothes, a tidy braid plaited down his back. Not a crease in his uniform, not a hair out of place. 

“What are you working on?” Allen mumbled, dragging his discarded blanket around his shoulders and slipping from the high bunk to drop to the floor, meandering over to peer down at the pages Link had spread before him. Composing a letter, it seemed, but after a moment’s confusion, it didn’t seem to be in any language Allen could understand.

Or, any language at all.

“A report on our progress,” Link murmured, meticulously turning the page by his elbow face-down. The original report, it seemed. From the notes spread before him, he seemed to be in the middle of encoding the message. 

“What does it say?” Allen asked, leaning closer to tilt his head at the pages of formula, trying to make brief sense of the nonsense on the scroll Link was calligraphing. Link didn’t say anything for the sake of continuing his work, and Allen’s eye caught on a single character. “Gemini?” he hummed, quickly scanning the arrayed papers. There wasn’t anything to suggest duality, but he sensed the tense line of Link’s shoulders. He slumped with a breath and took a step back to sit wearily on the empty bunk below his. “It’s about Tyki,” he hazarded, “isn’t it.”

Link held his silence for a long moment before admitting, “He was unforeseen. My superior will wish to know.”

Allen breathed a long sigh and let himself fall back on the thin mattress with a huff, and glanced around when he realised it was Tyki’s - the blankets undisturbed. He must not have come back to the cabin. “Don’t worry about him so much,” he suggested, turning onto his side and pulling the second blanket around him too. “He only winds you up because you let him.”

“Is that a fact,” Link muttered, dry and emphatically unconvinced. 

Allen hesitated a moment before defending, “Mostly,” and reluctantly following it up with an admission of, “I’m not sure. He might not be a good person,” he allowed, “but he has a good nature. I can’t imagine he truly dislikes you,” he said, pushing up to watch the back of Link’s head, both blankets bundled around him. “He seems to like picking on you because you make it so easy.”

“It’s best not to assume,” Link murmured without looking up, head dipped to the focus of composing his letter. 

“You think he  _ does  _ dislike you?” Allen prompted, an innocent enough question.

There was a quiet sigh, and Link set down his pen and straightened his shoulders. “Tyki Mikk has a history with the Dai Li,” he confided, voice subdued. “Not a short one,” he admitted, “and not a good one. He poses a threat to the National Guard,” he stressed, half turning in his seat to pin Allen with a look of serious severity, “and to the Earth Kingdom’s historic culture and way of life - which we stand to protect.” Almost biting off the end of his own sentence, Link closed his eyes in a brief flutter of frustration.  _ “They,”  _ he forcibly corrected himself, “protect.”

Brows drawn together in earnest confusion, Allen prompted, “So…?”

Link breathed a sharp sigh from his nose and opened his eyes, rust-red like iron clay. “Regardless of where my loyalties lie,” he reasoned, “he will only ever see me as Dai Li. And he will never see  _ them  _ as anything but his enemy.”

Quietly, Allen asked, “Are you? His enemy,” he clarified, reluctant for an answer.

Link turned back to the cramped table and picked up his pen, continued to transcribe his message into encryption. “Only if he considers me such,” was his only answer, the immovably stern set of his shoulders efficient punctuation to the end of their discussion. 

Unwilling to press Link for more - unwilling for dissatisfying answers to questions he was better off not asking, Allen pushed himself to stand and looked down at Tyki’s bunk, blankets only disturbed by Allen. He didn’t need Link to tell him Tyki had stayed out. Blanket still tangled in his fingers and draped around his shoulders, Allen bundled the second one into his arms and said, “I’ll go find him,” as he stepped past, pushing open the heavy iron door of the cabin. 

Link didn’t look up from his work, and Allen closed that door gently behind himself. 

Tyki was out on the deck. Allen was half sure he’d find him looking wistfully out over the gently-dawning sky, but upon finding him he figured that Tyki might not be the type to rise with the sun. Slumped against the steel hull of the main cabin, chin resting against his chest and quiet snores dragging from each breath, Allen figured a life of lazily shirked responsibility fit him like something bespoke. 

Gently, making some effort not to wake him, Allen draped the blanket over him to cover his outstretched legs before leaning back against the hull and letting himself slip down to sit on the engine-warmed deck, knees tucked against his chest, blanketed arms curled around them. 

Gaze turned out on the blue-grey of an almost-dawn sky, he felt Tyki quietly huff awake beside him and, feeling weary eyes find his face, said, “It’s probably best you didn’t come back to the cabin last night.” He paused to pull in a deep breath of cool air, cupped his hands around his mouth and breathed warm, flickering flames into his cold hands. “You snore,” he reasoned, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his lips, and cast a narrow-eyed glance aside to Tyki. 

“I certainly should have, then,” he mumbled, voice rough and bleary with sleep. “It would have annoyed Link terribly.”

“You’re really hard on him,” Allen hummed consideration. “Do you think that’s fair?”

Tyki seemed to wake up a little at that, blinking first at Allen and then up at the almost-light sky. “The Dai Li have been hard on me for almost ten years,” he commented, blithe, voice still rough. “Don’t  _ you?” _

He gave Tyki a reprimanding glance and reasoned, “You don’t think that might be a little warranted? Anyway,” he added, lifting his shoulders in a shrug, “You heard him last night. Link isn’t with the National Guard anymore.” From what he’d seen that morning, it was something Link was still coming to terms with, himself. It mustn’t be some small thing, having dedicated his body and soul to his country only to have the title of that stripped away - even if it were to be for the sake of the duty he seemed so eager to bow to. 

Tyki didn’t strike Allen as someone who would make an effort to empathise. Allen wasn’t sure he’d ever  _ had  _ a sense of duty. But the shrewd look he pinned on Allen told him all too clearly that whether or not he understood Link, he had more than enough understanding of the Dai Li. “Do you really think that?” was what he asked, and asked as though he didn’t believe a word. 

Allen let his shoulders slump with a weary breath, and knew it was as good as an admission of  _ no.  _ Being part of the National Guard and being  _ loyal  _ to them were vastly different things. Link might have doffed his title, but his report could only be intended for one of a small handful of people, and he still maintained the Guard’s suspicion of Tyki. “I need his help,” he muttered, defeated in these crossties of loyalties, and dropped his chin to rest on his knees, “and I need Cross out of prison.”

“Why?” Tyki asked, blithe. “Admiral. Your master, right?” he prompted, fingers twining in the blanket Allen had lain across him. “He’d have known from the beginning what helping you would mean. He made his bed,” he shrugged, letting his head fall back against the hull to look up at the sky. “Let him lie in it. The only thing he has left to teach you is to not be dumb enough to waste the chance he’s given you.”

Allen looked at him, jaw set with steely disagreement. “It was never his role to train me,” he said, voice still, “or to raise me. But he forsook his life to do it anyway.”

“Away from your home,” Tyki reasoned, mocking gold eyes slipping open, “and your people, and your culture. At least I made the choice to leave myself.” He breathed a bored sigh and let his eyes fall closed once more. “It’s not that  _ I  _ care,” he reasoned, voice deep and slothful, “but maybe  _ you  _ should. Did you even learn waterbending before he took you?” he reasoned, infuriatingly blithe. “Maybe you owe him less than you think.”

Quietly, forcefully, Allen said, “I owe him my life.”

“And he owes  _ you  _ the lives of every single Water Bender he killed getting you out of there.” There wasn’t a shred of amusement tangled through Tyki’s voice, and his expression held the weight of condescending reprimand. “There are no Masters left to teach you.”

Regret plucked sharp in Allen’s throat, and he shut his eyes against it. “Why do you care what I owe him?” he asked, voice quiet, fists tight. 

“Because you’re demanding I offer my life to his cause,” he reasoned, his words smooth and polished and unbreakable, “when it was  _ saving  _ my life that tied me to yours.” He pinned Allen with a look, immovable severity written in his eyes. “If I’m going to die for someone, it won’t be for another murderer.”

Quietly, gaze turned to his hands resting on his knees, Allen asked, “Why are you so certain we’ll die?”

A long silence stretched between them, softened by the call of the wind and the rumble of the ship’s engines before Tyki murmured, “Historically, that’s all we’ve ever done.”

“We?” Allen repeated, a frown pinching his brows.

“Us,” he gestured between them,  _ “we.  _ Both the Water Tribes have been slaughtered - not a man left standing - and the Air Temples are next.” Jaw tight, he lifted to his feet, blanket held between his fingers. “Surely you know,” he said, scowling down at Allen and letting it fall to his lap, “that wind only fans flames brighter.”

“I won’t leave Cross there,” Allen said, staunch, his jaw set while he looked up at Tyki - hardened self-preservation set against a dawning sky. “So what would you have me do?”

“Whatever you want,” Tyki answered with a one-shouldered shrug and stepped away to lean his folded arms atop the rail of the stern. “But don’t build your plans on the foundations of my cooperation,” he warned, shoulders loose. “They’re shaky enough as it is.”

“Link won’t let you leave,” he reminded, words dull. It was hardly his intention to keep Tyki against his will - but if that was what it took to keep him alive, he’d happily offer the sanctuary.

“If I choose to,” Tyki reasoned, “he won’t have a choice but to let me. There’s a difference between having a blade at my throat, and the empty threat of one.”

Allen forced a tightly-coiled sigh past his lips and dropped his head back against the hull of the cabin. “So you won’t help me,” he summarised, succinct and coloured with disappointment.

“I’ll train you,” Tyki reassured, “but I won’t fight for you.” He turned then, to lean against the stern, hands resting on the rail behind him. “And I doubt you’re the type to ask me to die for you.”

Biting frustration,  _ burning,  _ that he drew in with a deep breath. Fanned the flames of flaring anger, and held it within him for a few long seconds. And then, let it go. A slow stream of hot air spilled past his lips and the fire in him dimmed. Quietened. Rationality and something like sorrowful regret was left in its place. Tepid and somewhat calm. Cross had never taught him to bend water, but it was what he  _ was.  _ Not anger. Not frustration and fury and untempered fire. He’d never been taught to bend water, but it was in his blood. In every breath. Release, pliance, relief. 

“You’re right,” he admitted, words turned subdued and quiet, and he pushed to his feet. “I won’t force you to fight. But I still need you to teach me.”

Tyki tilted his head a fraction, angled his chin. Quietly attentive. 

“So,” he proposed, taking a staunch step closer, “will you?”

“Now?” Tyki clarified, turning to him. Affected surprised. It was clear Allen hadn’t exactly shocked him, but it was clear he hadn’t expected to prepare himself that moment. 

A wry smile curled at Allen’s lips and he reasoned, “What else is there to do?”

“Sleep,” Tyki muttered, an unappeased tone of disgruntlement. 

“While the sun’s out?” Allen countered, a laugh slipping past his lips. 

“It’s  _ not  _ out,” Tyki reminded, scowling up at the pink-stained sky. “That’s the  _ point.” _

_ “Please?”  _ Allen entreated, daring a step closer, smiling his best smile. “It’s not like Link can teach me anything on a metal ship.”

Tyki drew in a deep breath and let it all out in a gesture of reluctant defeat. “Fine,” he huffed, brushing past Allen to follow the line of the deck around to the bow, “but I doubt I even remember how I learned, so there’s no promises to how I teach.”

“Where are you going?” Allen asked, trotting to catch up. 

“Face East,” Tyki said, pointing to the gold warmth of the horizon, the sun still hidden beneath the waves, “and feel the wind of our passage.”

“Stand on the bowhead?” Allen hazarded, eyeing up the mutinous point of the Fire Nation ship’s bow. 

_ “Sit,”  _ Tyki corrected him with a forceful hand on his shoulder, pushing him to kneel on the deck, “and meditate.”

“On what?” Allen asked, shifting to cross his legs, a confused glance cast up at Tyki. 

“The air,” Tyki reasoned as though it were obvious. It probably was. “The movement of the water beneath us,” he said, pointing to the swaying of the deck beneath them, “and the warmth of the sun ahead.”

“What does meditating teach me?” Allen demanded, brows pulling together.

Tyki looked at him, expression blank and somehow mockingly pointed. “Patience,” he answered, mild. 

Allen was unconvinced. “You don’t strike me as very patient,” he said.

“You don’t know me that well,” Tyki reasoned, turning as though to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Allen asked, and made as though to stand up. A brutally sharp gust of wind swept below him, knocking his feet out from beneath his body, and he fell heavily back onto the deck with a sharp, frustrated sound. 

“To find breakfast,” Tyki answered, blithe, and kept walking.

“Can you get me something?” Allen called after him, words embedded in a frustrated grumble.

Tyki cast a look over his shoulder, and blinked once. “No,” he said, and turned around the corner.

Lips tight, brows furrowed, Allen sat with one hand planted on the warm deck and wondered if he ought to simply get up and follow. With a bitter huff he turned to face the sun and righted his position. Crossed his legs, lowered his shoulders, folded his hands over the pit of his stomach. A Fire Bender’s pose, intended to direct awareness within, to the depth of his breath.

Another quiet sigh, this time defeated, and Allen moved his hands to rest lax and empty over his knees. He closed his eyes, and breathed the ocean air. Let himself feel the breeze of their passage. Taste the salt of the wind on the back of his tongue. He cast his focus outwards. The warm deck, and the swaying bob of the ship across the waves. The heat of the sun breaking the horizon, gold light stained red behind his closed eyes. 

He thought of Cross, beyond that horizon. Waiting in an iron prison. Impatiently, he could imagine. He was always waiting on Allen. Waiting for him to catch up. To catch on. Seeds of thought sewn here and there, watching for the moment they took root. His tutelage had never been about teaching, but rather giving Allen no option but to learn.

Perhaps the intention of this was somehow similar. Nothing to do but think. Less than that, even, he considered to the crash of the ship’s hull breaking through the waves. Nothing to do but  _ be.  _ Learn from the elements themselves. 

Tyki didn’t strike Allen as someone so esoteric as all that, but maybe he was right. Allen didn’t know him all that well. Two days of travel could only teach him so much. And Tyki… might not have been the monkly spiritual guide Allen had assumed his teacher would be, but even a fool could see he was intrinsically tied to the air. The way he moved, and the way he spoke, and the way he  _ lived.  _

As though he had nothing to do but be. Revel in the pleasures of his own existence. Tyki was unbound. Free, in a way Allen couldn’t quite comprehend. He could understand, in some small way, how vexing he must be for the Dai Li. Chasing the tail of a man made of smoke was a fruitless act. He hardly bothered to keep up the appearance of being shackled. There had been no promise of Allen finding him asleep on the deck that morning. If he were so inclined, he would change course with as little concern as he had in Omashu. Leap across waves like rooftops.

Leap across waves like rooftops, wind skimming whitecaps, furling sails, churning tides. Lifting gulls high on wing, driving the ocean to tear itself against clifface. Hot air rising, cold winds cutting, and wherever it so chooses to tumble, impossible to guide or tame. Tyki would go where he pleased and, Allen noted with a realisation of meek thanks, he had chosen to train him and board their ship and travel to the Fire Nation itself. 

He wouldn’t fight, but he stayed because he wanted to. 

Slow against the morning sun, Allen opened his eyes. Amidst the glare, Tyki was sitting with his back propped against the bow, carefully picking at a bowl of plain rice. 

“Can I have some?” Allen asked, legs tightening in the expectation of an answer.

“Can you Air Bend?” Tyki countered without bothering to look at Allen.

“You haven’t taught me how to Air Bend,” he reasoned with a scowl, stomach churning a threatening grumble, “and I don’t see  _ you  _ meditating.”

“I don’t need to,” he said simply, bringing another mouthful of rice to his lips. “I’m not the unbalanced idiot with no resolution of patience. What did you learn?”

“I learned about you,” Allen answered, sly, his eyes coquettishly narrowed.

Tyki, to his credit, didn’t seem surprised. “You’re still too grounded,” he rationalised, eyeing him over with an indecipherable look, “if you feel the need to give the wind a face.”

“Fine,” Allen relented, heavy and weighted, and let himself fall back on the deck with his arms spread wide, let the sun breathe warmth into his too-still body. “Do you want me to keep going?” he asked, words let drift up into the sky. 

“Get breakfast,” Tyki corrected, and reasoned, “you’ve been here for three hours.”

“Three hours,” Allen repeated on a worn mumble, and squinted up at the sun as though it had betrayed him.

“It was only meant to be one,” Tyki defended with an air of gracious unconcern, “but I got distracted and honestly forgot you were here.”

“How is your food still hot?” Allen asked, squinting over at him. 

“It’s practically lunchtime,” Tyki mumbled through another mouthful, and Allen dropped back with another sigh.

 

* * *

 

 

Allen found Tyki lounging on the back deck with Link. The optimist would call it a good sign, but from the look on Link’s face, and the awful grin splitting Tyki’s, that simply was not so. 

“Are you busy?” Allen reprimanded with a stern sort of frown.

Tyki, unaffected, answered, “Overwhelmed, almost. Link was just in the middle of telling me how the whole Dai Li are all but frothing at the mouth for some head.”

Link’s hand shot out, jabbing Tyki in the chest with the force he took to wrench the front of his robes up near his throat. “Twist my words one more time,” he bit out, cold and furious, “and I’ll kill you myself.”

“What’s on your mind?” Tyki asked Allen, heedless of Link’s threats. 

“Airbending,” Allen answered doubtfully. 

“Of course,” he announced, very pleased, sly eyes slipping back to Link. “No better place for it, actually. Tell me what you know.”

Allen blinked at him. “I know how to Fire Bend,” he answered blankly. “You haven’t told me anything about air.”

“Right,” Tyki agreed, “right, well. Tell me about Firebending.”

“It’s direct,” Allen said, shoulders lifting in a vague shrug, “certain. Unyielding.”

“Right, right,” Tyki agreed, a hand coming up to bat Link’s fist away from his robes. “Isn’t that exhausting?” he prompted, taking a step back from Link. “You’re doing  _ all  _ the work. How do you think I stir him up so easily?” he asked, gesturing back at the incensed Guard. 

Allen frowned, wondered if that was relevant. “Find…” he hazarded slowly, quick glances shot at Link, “where he’s sensitive?”

Tyki shook his head, a smile on his lips. “No,” he corrected, loosening his shoulders and correcting his stance, body turned to face Link’s. “I hand him a shovel and let him dig his own holes.”

“What are you doing?” Link demanded, shrewdly eyeing the way Tyki held himself. 

“If you land a hit,” Tyki entreated, his smile sharp with a dare, “I promise I won’t speak a word to you until we reach shore.”

“You’re  _ asking  _ me to hit you?” Link demanded, and looked so taken aback as to be amused. 

“All but begging,” Tyki confirmed, voice a low, mocking taunt. 

Link looked to Allen as though, absurdly, checking for permission. From the severe frown on his face and the pitch of his lips, he very much wanted to hit Tyki. Allen spread his hands in answer. “I don’t call any shots,” he defended, taking a cautious step back. “I’m the student.”

Link huffed a sharp, assertive breath and turned to face Tyki properly, heels planted on the deck. “Bans?” he prompted, eyes dragging over his opponent’s wispish stance. Likely the first time he’d deigned to look Tyki head-on. The promise of getting to bruise him, it seemed, was an enticing one. 

“It’s not an Agni Kai, Howard,” Tyki huffed with a roll of his eyes. “Just  _ hit me.” _

Link stepped closer, still eyeing Tyki up, his lips set in tense silence. The lazy cockiness written across Tyki’s face read that he only knew how to underestimate someone, but Link didn’t seem too eager as to return the favour. Agni Kai or not, Link was, in effect, being offered a chance to restore some breath of honour to the National Guard in regards to Tyki Mikk disgracing them. 

Just one hit was all it would take for him to win. 

Allen knew it, and from the smile on his face, Tyki knew it too. Hand him a shovel, he’d said, and the moment Link struck out with a sharp fist aimed for Tyki’s solar plexus, he’d twisted out of reach. Quick feet, smooth movements. 

Link didn’t look to have expected anything less, but he didn’t pause to telegraph his approach. His strikes were quick, certain, and held a sense of immalleable strength that had Allen thinking a bruise would be the least of Tyki’s concerns should one of the hits connect.

He needn’t bother worrying about Tyki, though. Feet dancing back, back, he was never where he had been when Link’s strikes made it there. Like throwing a rock at a breeze. There wasn’t anything to hit. 

There was no pattern to the quick movements of his feet, but a rhythm that made it look as though each step was calculated. Constantly adapting to Link’s every movement, but never questioning where he needed to be next. Twisting away from Link’s strikes and into the empty spaces his body left behind that Link was turned in circles over and again, and Tyki was never where he expected him to be. 

If he was frustrated, Link didn’t show it. Fury only stood in the harsh set of his jaw, and not one of them had to bend to be so evenly matched. Tyki didn’t strike at Link, and Link couldn’t hit him. Allen was in the midst of wondering how a match like that would ever end when Tyki ducked out from beneath Link’s next strike, a victorious sort of taunt tugging at his lips, and asked, “Dizzy?”

All but unaffected, Link struck out once more with a high, jabbing kick, his heel set for Tyki’s gut. 

Without a breath of hesitation Tyki sunk low to the deck, arm curled down the line of his outstretched leg, and lifted from the long crouch in a smooth twist, caught the ankle of Link’s kick in the hand he’d corkscrewed behind his own back, twisted to right himself, and slid his foot beneath Link’s support, lifting the leg in his hand to have him fall onto his back. Graceless, furious, and appalled at his own defeat.

“And that,” Tyki concluded, “is how you uproot an Earth Bender.”

“How did you do that?” Allen demanded, wide-eyed to Tyki’s smug satisfaction. 

“Give him a shovel,” Tyki repeated himself from earlier, reaching a hand down to Link in an offer to help him up, mocking smirk curled on his lips, “and let him dig his own holes.”

Face set in stone, Link slapped Tyki’s hand away and forced himself to his feet, movements stiff with heated embarrassment. 

“You were paying so much attention to  _ me,”  _ he reasoned to Link, turning around him in a set of misdirected twists, a calculated chaos just like what he’d been weaving through Link’s strikes, “that you didn’t notice what I was making you do.” Link, true to form, almost stumbled when he turned to follow Tyki’s dance around him, and Tyki’s mocking smile was somewhat, somehow, kinder. “Dizzy?” he asked again, and Link answered with a helplessly frustrated scowl. 

“So,” Tyki announced, abandoning Link to drape his attention over Allen, “the point of Airbending isn’t to be  _ powerful,  _ but to be  _ untouchable.  _ Let them dig their own holes. And once they’re finished?” he hazarded with a vague shrug, “Push them in.”

“I like the idea of being untouchable,” Allen admitted with a grave nod, “and I like the idea of being able to push Link over,” he added to the sharp huff of Link’s frustration, “but you still haven’t taught me how to bend air.”

Tyki gave him an odd look, frowned confusion. “You’re the Avatar,” he said simply. “You  _ are  _ an Airbender. But if you think you’re going to be bending air by moving it like fire, you’re wrong.”

“But you didn’t beat Link by bending at him,” Allen reasoned, staunch and somewhat confused with the meandering curriculum Tyki seemed more to be making up as he went than planning with any degree of thought.

Tyki blinked at him, slow and unaffected. “Do you need to go meditate again?” he asked. 

Allen blinked back. “No,” he said, brows furrowing into a frown. “I already meditated for three hours. Remember?”

“Were you relaxed?” he asked. Allen’s frown deepened. 

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Why aren’t you relaxed now?”

“Because I don’t understand you,” Allen huffed, confusion churning into frustration at Tyki’s unaffected patience. 

“You said you did, not too long ago,” he reminded, gently pointed. 

“That was when I was relaxed,” Allen countered, and pulled up short at the sly, victorious smile that slipped across Tyki’s face.

“So go meditate,” he reasoned, gesturing vaguely to the bow of the ship. “It’ll help you relax.”

“But it won’t help me Air Bend,” Allen said, scowling defensively. 

“Walker,” Link commanded, quiet and stern. Allen looked at him, shoulders slumping in defeat. “If you wish to be taught, you must be willing to learn.” It was like a sharp shock of betrayal. Allen couldn’t help but stare. “What?” Link demanded, drawing himself to stand tall under Allen’s appalled scrutiny. 

“Of all people,” he mused in a hurt murmur, shaking his head, “I never expected you to side with Tyki Mikk.”

Tyki gave a smug, satisfied hum, smiling like a cat, and Link acknowledged him with a vaguely disgusted sort of look. “I side with your training,” he corrected, distaste laced through his voice. “If meditation is what your mentor thinks is best, then you should follow his instruction.”

Tyki’s smile grew somehow even more smug, and he agreed, “Hear that? I’m your mentor.”

“Excuse the interruption,” a crisp voice demanded, and the three of them snapped around to see the captain of their commandeered ship - a slight Earth Kingdom girl with fierce eyes and a habit of ignoring Link’s existence. “We’ll be passing a naval barricade soon.”

“Will we be boarded?” Allen asked, heart shuddering in his fingertips.

“It’s not likely,” she answered, “but very possible. It’s best not to take the chance. I’ll need the three of you in position.”

Link stepped forwards, jaw set, and asked, “Will you carry a note for me?” The captain turned on her heel as though she hadn’t heard, and Link darted out to catch her elbow, demanding  _ “Tewaku.”  _

She tilted her chin just far enough to pin him with a baleful sort of glare from the corner of her eye. 

“For Levellier,” he insisted, staunch, grip not easing on her arm.

At length she wrenched out of his hold and strode with infuriated purpose towards the stairs leading down into the ship’s hold. 

Allen glanced at Tyki, who raised his brows back at Allen, and the two of them looked at Link’s back to watch him steel himself, set his shoulders, and follow after her with the same sort of devastating purpose. 

“Interesting,” Tyki murmured, setting off after them. 

Link, in the cramped cabin they’d slept in, sorted quickly through the notes and papers he’d left scattered across the table, quickly rolled and bound one scroll, and held the rest out for Allen to take. “Burn them,” he commanded briefly, brushing out of the room and after the captain once more. Allen glanced at Tyki again, lingering by the door, and they each raised their brows at each other. Bringing a flame to flicker into his palm, Allen burned the documents of code and dusted his hands free of ash.

Following the captain down the cramped hall from a distance, Allen murmured, “Are you sure you’re fine, being bound?”

“What,” Tyki laughed lightly, voice pitched just as quiet, “having my hands and feet tied and being locked in a cell in the cramped guts of a steel ship?” He grinned down at Allen, eyes creased in easy reassurance despite the sarcastic lilt of his words. “They couldn’t hold me if they were serious about it.”

Just as teasing, Allen asked, “If the ship goes down, will you get me out?”

“Oh, no,” Tyki laughed, reaching a hand out to ruffle Allen’s hair. “Every man for himself. If you can’t get out yourself, you’ll just be dead in the water.”

“But you  _ owe  _ me,” Allen countered, batting Tyki’s hand away with a grin. 

“You’re not doing it for  _ me,”  _ Link was stubbornly entreating, the encoded letter held out like a demand between him and the captain. “It was Levellier’s orders that I leave, and it was Levellier’s orders that you get us into the Fire Nation.”

“The difference is,” she bit out, snatching the scroll from his hand and tucking it into her robes, “if he told you to abandon your family, you’d do it without question.”

“Of course I have questions,” Link demurred, turning his back and clasping his hands for her to bind him at the wrists and elbows. “But it’s not my place to ask them.”

Roughly, Tewaku jabbed him between the shoulderblades to shove him in the direction of one of two steel-trap cells built into the ship’s hold. “Duty first, Link,” she agreed in all but a sneer, and locked the door behind him. “As always.” 

“Awkward,” Tyki mumbled, turning his back for the captain the same way Link had. 

_ “You,”  _ she snapped, binding his arms, “are lucky you’re under Link’s protection. Or I’d deliver you to Boiling Rock myself.”

“I’m not under Link’s protection,” Tyki corrected with a confused frown. “I’m under  _ his,”  _ he said, nodding in Allen’s direction. 

“I don’t care for the Avatar,” Tewaku said, clipped, nudging him towards the second cell, “so don’t try too hard to convince me of that.”

“Ah,” Tyki sighed wistfully, “I guess we’re all just a group of people on a boat who don’t like each other.”

The door snapped closed behind him and Tewaku turned her back, plucked a crowbar from amongst the clutter of pipes lining the walls, and used it to wedge up one of the sheets of iron flooring which made up the hall. Beneath was a hole deep enough for him to stand, twisted and twined through with pipes conducting steam through the engines. Allen peered down, and then back up at the captain. 

“Get in,” she commanded abruptly. 

A quiet sigh, Allen crouched down, hands squared on either side of the false floor, and dropped his legs in before carefully lowering himself down. There was barely enough room, and he hissed in a sharp, pained breath when he drew his arms down and brushed against one of the steam-hot pipes.

“Careful,” was Tewaku’s only warning before she dropped the sheet down over the top of the hole and stamped it harshly into place with her heel. It fit snug amongst the other panels above his head, so not a crack of light shone through. It was perfectly dark and, beyond the stomp of Tewaku marching back along the hall to the deck, all he could hear for a long moment was the huff and hiss of steam churning through the pipes around him.

A long minute passed to find Allen clinging to the steel struts which supported the floorboards to keep himself from leaning with the sway of the ship and butting against another of those red-hot pipes. And then, Tyki’s voice. Muffled through the sheet metal, but Allen  _ was  _ all but underneath him. 

“So,” he announced, and seemed to wait for Link to fill the blank. When he didn’t, he continued, “Was that your ex, or…?”

“Why,” Link bit out, furiously cold, “do you insist on talking to me when it serves  _ no purpose.” _

Tyki was quiet for a good few seconds. After those seconds had passed, he hazarded, “Bad breakup, then?”

“She’s my  _ sister,”  _ Link snapped, and Allen felt the shudder of his frustration-heavy steps through the frame of the floor. 

“Ah,” Tyki hummed, and then, “that’s rough.” Link didn’t say anything, and after a long moment Tyki asked, “So why did you decide to leave your family to go on a soul-searching journey with a couple of people you don’t know or like?”

If silence could be aggressively screamed in someone’s face, that was definitely what Link was screaming in Tyki’s. Just cold, furious silence. Tyki didn’t say anything after that. After several minutes, Allen supposed it was because he’d gotten what he wanted. All he wanted, really, was to get under Link’s skin. To poke a bruise and ask if it hurt. The more silent Link was, the more something hurt. It wasn’t just Link’s nation that he was betraying on Allen’s behalf. 

But then, he wasn’t really doing it for Allen, was he. 

It was somewhere amidst those thoughts that a troop of footsteps came from the end of the hall and stopped right over his head, harsh with the clang of steel on steel. Fire Nation, without a shadow of a doubt. 

“My, My,” dripped words of sweet, condescending consideration, a woman’s voice low and rough and unused to pleasantry. “When I heard they’d caught an Air Nomad, I just had to come see for myself,” she reasoned, two more careful steps to match the bars of Tyki’s cell. “You’re a rare breed, these days.”

Tyki, for once, seemed to be short on words. Arms bound, in a cage, in claustrophobic guts of a steel ship, confronted with a Fire Bender. Short of breath might not be out of the realm of possibility. At length Allen heard him ask quietly, something in his voice restrained just as his arms were, “Where did you get that?”

“Lau Jimin?” the woman asked through some kind of pleased satisfaction, and the meek chitter of some kind of animal filtered down to Allen through the floor. “I rescued him during a raid on the Southern Temple some time ago. Clever little things,” she murmured, smug, “flying lemurs.”

“Rescued,” Tyki repeated, something complex woven through his voice. As though he couldn’t quite tell if he was enraged or horrified, but working his damndest to not be either.

“I didn’t want him to get hurt in the firestorm,” she reasoned, simple, voice rough honey. Enticing, in a choking sort of way. “I’ve an air bison too,” she added, “back at the Capital. If you like,” she entreated, a smile curling through her words, “I could save you too. Prison Tower is luxurious compared to Boiling Rock.”

A long, careful moment stretched between them and, at length, Tyki considered, “What’s your name?”

Her voice sounded like a sharp smirk - sounded like something dangerous. “Admiral Klaud Nine,” she answered, certain of her own authority. “Should I send word of your transfer?”

Murmured in a facsimile of respect so convincing Allen almost bit his tongue, Tyki accepted, “I’m humbled by your generosity, Admiral.”

After a beat she offered a satisfied sort of hum and seemed to turn on her heel. “Out,” she commanded her guard, and to the sound of their heavy feet clashing back down the hall, Allen breathed on the sigh which had coiled tense at the base of his throat and let his eyes slip closed.

It was several long minutes later before they felt the ship’s engines churn back to life as they headed back underway, and it was only when Tewaku came back to lift the floor panel and offer a hand to lifting Allen out of the cramped space that Link, his horror bottled that whole time, barked in a voice loud enough to ricochet off the narrow walls, “What are you _ doing?  _ We’re not  _ going  _ to prison!” he seethed, all his panicked fury released on Tyki. “Why would you arrange to get  _ transferred to another prison  _ when  _ YOU’RE NOT INCARCERATED?” _

“God,” Tyki groaned, turning his back to Tewaku opening his cell to let her cut his bonds, “shut  _ up  _ you are loud. What,” he said, lip curling in disgust as he shook his arms out, “are you jealous that a psychotic Fire Bender doesn’t have a fetish for tryhard little Dai Li agents? I’m not  _ going  _ to prison,” he bit out, striding out of the cell. “I’m getting us a ticket out of this ridiculous fucking country.”

“How?” Link demanded, voice all but torn with disbelief. “On the back of the admiral who heads the aggression against Air Nomads?”

“Close guess, Howard,” Tyki mocked, all but sneering, “but no. We’re going on the back of the air bison she stole from the Eastern Nomads’ herds.”

Cautious of putting himself in this particular firing line, Allen allowed, “Good of you to get that information, but how are we going to find an air bison?”

Tyki turned on him and looked about to continue the heat of the argument before catching the genuine, earnest question Allen creased into the line of his brow, the set of his lips. Instead he asked, almost surprised, “You’ve never seen one, have you?” Allen shrugged, as inoffensive and naive as he could make himself. Tyki arched his brows and gestured, “Imagine… an enormous shaggy beast with six legs. Twice as tall as me and five times as long. Giant arrow on its forehead,” he added, pointing reasonably at the one tattooed on his own. 

Allen blinked before admitting, “Hard to miss.”

Tyki’s expression creased into one of his well-worn smiles and he said, “I’m sure any number of people could tell me where to find Admiral Klaud Nine’s properties.”

Allen glanced cautiously over at Link, caught the stern pinch of his lips and the unwilling appraisal in his eyes. “Hm,” he allowed, short. 

“Oh,” Tyki announced grandly, turning back to face him as though he’d forgotten Link was even there, “sorry. Was that plan too plausible for your perception of me?” he offered, a mockery of modesty. 

“This…  _ bison,”  _ Link hesitated to say, skepticism written in every word, “had better be able to carry four people across the sea.”

Tyki arched a brow. “You too, huh?” he asked as Link shouldered past, heading down the hall for the stairs. “Never seen one before?” he prompted, lips curling into a smirk when he turned to follow after him.

All Link said in response as he crested the deck was, “Get ready to swim. We’ll be passing by the drop-off soon.”

“Uh,” Allen hesitated, peering after them over the deck to the jagged coast of the Fire Nation not too far in the distance, “swim?”

Link’s frown was somewhat stressed. “You can…” he hazarded,  _ “swim,  _ right?”

“I  _ can,”  _ Allen confirmed, walking to the port side and looking down over the rail to the churning water of the ocean beneath them, stretching almost two klicks to shore, “but why would I  _ want  _ to?”

Tyki’s hand landed on Allen’s shoulder and he reasoned, for some absurd reason  _ agreeing  _ with Link, “Ever walked blindly into your enemy’s hands before?”

“It’s a naval port,” Link confirmed, swinging himself over the rail and clinging to the other side. “The last thing we want is to fight our way out of that.”

“But,” Allen insisted, clinging to the rail as Link leapt out to drop into the dark water, “the coast is cliffs for miles,” he pleaded, eyes turned to Tyki, who only shrugged.

“He’s an Earth Bender,” he reasoned pointing down into the water where Link’s blond head had breached the surface, hair painted dark and plastered to his head. “We’ll make him carve some stairs.” With that he dived out in a graceful arc and Allen was left alone on the deck with Tewaku. 

He looked at her, pleading.

“I will throw you overboard,” she promised. Allen didn’t doubt it.

With a defeated sigh he swung himself over the rail, closed his eyes, and threw himself into the ocean. 

 


End file.
